was an official in the government of Japan's

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city o ...

, and an Okinawan rights activist, in connection with the .

Life and career

Jahana Noboru was born in 1865 into a farming family in Kochinda ''

magiri The administrative divisions of the Ryukyu Kingdom were a hierarchy composed of districts, ''magiri'', cities, villages, and islands established by the Ryukyu Kingdom throughout the Ryukyu Islands. Divisions There were three or ''hō'': , , and ...

''"Jahana Noboru." ''Okinawa rekishi jinmei jiten'' (沖縄歴史人名事典, "Encyclopedia of People of Okinawan History"). Naha: Okinawa Bunka-sha, 1996. p37. on Okinawa, then part of the Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1882, he traveled to Tokyo to study, one of fiveKerr, George H. ''Okinawa: The History of an Island People''. (revised ed.) Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2003. p414n. to be the first to be funded by Okinawa Prefecture to do so,"Jahana Noboru." ''Okinawa konpakuto jiten'' (沖縄コンパクト事典, "Okinawa Compact Encyclopedia")
Ryukyu Shimpo
(琉球新報). 1 March 2003. Accessed 19 September 2008. attending Gakushūin and Tokyo University.　The first Okinawan university graduate, he was hired into the prefectural government as an engineer of agriculture and forestry. In this role, he set forth to revise various strict and oppressive agricultural policies, including regulations related to sugar production, and wrote a book on the matter, . He also helped establish the , and was involved in forestry and other related projects. However, he opposed the governor of the prefecture,

Narahara Shigeru Baron , also known as Narahara Kogorō, was a Japanese politician of the Meiji period who served as the eighth governor of Okinawa Prefecture from 1892 to 1908, and in a number of other posts over the course of his career. A samurai of Satsuma ...

, on various aspects of policies related to the sales of public land and the bringing of new land under cultivation, and resigned from employment at the prefectural office. Returning to Tokyo, Jahana joined with Tōyama Kyūzō and gathered together other commoners of a like mind, forming the "Okinawa Club" and beginning a

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...

movement. He published a treatise on his positions entitled . The movement was opposed by the governor, prefectural government, and various former officials, who strongly pressured the organization, and eventually forced it to break up. This setback drove Jahana mad, and he died at age 44.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahana, Noboru 1865 births 1908 deaths People from Okinawa Island Japanese activists 20th-century Ryukyuan people 19th-century Ryukyuan people People of the Ryukyu Kingdom